Pawelek eager for real success at BaylorCelebrating mediocrity just won’t cut it for Bears’ heralded linebacker

Published 5:30 am, Wednesday, July 29, 2009

The 6-2, 240-pound Joe Pawelek, right, has excelled not only in the classroom but also on the field.

The 6-2, 240-pound Joe Pawelek, right, has excelled not only in the classroom but also on the field.

Photo: DUANE LAVERTY, AP

Pawelek eager for real football success at Baylor

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IRVING — At least they meant well. Joe Pawelek is almost sure of this.

But every time during the past eight months when fans congratulated him on the Baylor Bears' breakthrough, or well-wishers complimented him on a job well done, instead of forcing a smile, Pawelek was tempted to throw up his hands and ask them what in the world they were thinking.

“People are trying to pat you on the back,” Pawelek said, “but we were 4-8.”

It isn't that Pawelek is clueless about the long-entrenched mindset in Waco that made a losing record seem like something less than disastrous. Pawelek, Baylor's outstanding senior linebacker from Smithson Valley, knows all too well how low things had been at the worst football program in Big 12 history.

But he also is sure the Bears can do better. So when he arrived at Big 12 media days Tuesday and people tried coaxing him into talking about last season's “successes,” Pawelek instead stuck with his career-long approach of choosing to look forward.

“For the fifth year that I've been here,” Pawelek said, “this is the year.”

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For once, that statement isn't getting him laughed out of the room.

Last season, the Bears' first with Art Briles as head coach and speed-burning sensation Robert Griffin at quarterback, Baylor won its first two conference games in two years, hung close with two top-20 teams and provided as much hope as the program had experienced in more than a decade.

Now, with people outside of Waco actually taking them seriously at last, the Bears said they're ready to turn that into the school's first bowl appearance since 1994.

“We've got to turn the hype into happen,” Briles said. “We can't just operate on hope and want. What we've got to operate on is reality and results.”

Leads the way in tackles

Results have never been a problem for Pawelek. The 6-2, 240-pound Pawelek has excelled not only in the classroom — where he has been a seven-time member of the Big 12 commissioner's honor roll as a finance-economics double major — but also on the field.

Entering this season, he has more career tackles (313) than any active player in college football. Last year, he had more interceptions (six) than any other linebacker. All together, it's a package those around him don't take for granted.

“I tell our coaches, ‘Be thankful, be grateful, feel blessed every time you get to hang around a person like that,' ” Briles said, “because there's not many like him.”

Consistent but almost never flashy, Pawelek doesn't mean to call attention to himself. But whether he's patrolling the middle of the field or just having a conversation, he can't help it.

“It only takes about two minutes,” Briles said, “and you realize there's something going on here that's not normal.”

‘It's like night and day'

Pawelek would probably be better known had he chosen to play at another school, but he said even when the Bears were foundering under former coach Guy Morriss — even when they went 0-8 in the Big 12 in 2007 — “there's never been a point when I've lost hope.”

Jordan Lake, a safety who has teamed with Pawelek since they were redshirt freshmen in 2005, said bringing Baylor to a bowl would be a huge source of pride for the duo.

“Every now and then, we rehash back,” Lake said. “It's funny to think how far Baylor has come in five years. It's like night and day.”